smelt
part of speech
verb (past tense and past participle of smell, mainly UK, Ireland, Australia: smell, smells, smelt or smelled); verb (smelt, smelts, smelted, smelting — to melt rock to get metal); noun (a smelt, smelts — a small fish)
meaning for a pupil
1) (UK) Past form of smell: noticed a smell, or gave off a smell. tree →
2) To heat rock (ore) until the metal in it melts out. tree →
3) A small silver fish found in the sea and lakes. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday UK and Commonwealth English «it smelt lovely» is common; US English prefers smelled. In science and history, smelting iron and copper in furnaces began the Iron Age and Bronze Age. Phrases: smelt of, smelt iron.
examples
- The kitchen smelt of fresh bread. tree →
- I smelt smoke and called for help. tree →
- The dog smelt something in the bushes. tree →
- People smelted iron in hot furnaces. tree →
- Copper is smelted from rocks called ore. tree →
- We caught smelt in the lake. tree →
- I smelt it; it smelt honey. tree →
note
Both smelt and smelled are correct as the past of smell; smelt is British, smelled is more American. The «metal» smelt is a regular verb: smelted. The joke «Who smelt it dealt it» uses the smell meaning.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «smelt» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.